


You are Bluffing

by gingerlegend



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Desert Bluffs, Desert Bluffs Too, Gen, POV Second Person, kevin angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26147782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerlegend/pseuds/gingerlegend
Summary: You are a radio host. You live in Desert Bluffs. You are smiling because you aren't allowed to be anything except happy and productive.
Kudos: 7





	1. Strex Corps(e)

**Author's Note:**

> Experimental fic, as well as my first Kevin fic. Hope it's sufficiently angsty... I don't have more of this written atm, but i have ideas.

You try to remember what color your eyes were. They aren't anymore. You don't have eyes now, not really. You have something spherical in your eye sockets, something that gives you sight, but they aren't really eyes. You know this because you can't see in the same way you once did.

You want to cry. You don't cry. You aren't certain that you even _can_ cry anymore. So you smile. You smile as wide as you can, until your cheeks begin to hurt. Someone laughs. For just a moment, you don't recognize that laugh. Then you realize that it's coming from you, and you make the _choice_ to believe that you've always laughed like that.

You haven't been outside in a long time. Almost a year, maybe a little more. You aren't sure you could handle being in the sunlight anymore. Is the sun still out there? You aren't sure. There is still light, but it isn't normal light. It shines on everything, and then through everything. It burns, and you beg it to stop. You smile even wider than you were already smiling.. The light becomes a tiny bit dimmer, just enough to stop causing you pain. An act of mercy.

You turn to look at Vanessa, your intern. She's sitting on the ground, in the same position she's been in for ages. You wonder when she began to rot. You are smiling. You are happy.  
You wish you didn't have to lie about it.

"I am so very happy," you say after you finish your broadcast. "This is my home. How can I be anything but happy here?"  
You are lying. You are smiling. You will broadcast again tomorrow. You don't have a choice. You are smiling, which should mean you are happy.  
You _are_ happy, aren't you? Are you happy? You don't know anymore.

You dream of your job. You dream of efficiency. You dream of the consequences of being unproductive. If only you had been productive sooner. Maybe then you would still have an intern. Maybe then Vanessa would be alive. You dream of the consequences that have already been carried out, torturing you. You dream and it is not a nightmare.  
You wake up screaming.

You are so tired. You begin your broadcast in a cheerful voice. You are happy. You can't be anything else. You smile, and you smile, and you smile until it doesn't hurt anymore. And then you are happy.  
…Right?


	2. (b)old and (si)new

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You were exiled. You are in a desert otherworld. You decide to make the best of things.

_ Carpe diem  _ i s Latin for "seize the day." You aren't sure where you learned that. It seems like it was several lifetimes ago. You aren't even sure what Latin is. You aren't sure of a lot of things lately.  
You don't know what brought that phrase to mind. Maybe it's the fact that you've been thrust into a desert otherworld. Maybe it's the fact that you can't go home, and even if you could, it probably wouldn't be the same. Maybe it's the fact that you finally have some control over your life again.

You miss Vanessa, whose rotting corpse has probably been disposed of by now, never getting the chance to be devoured by the Smiling God.  
You miss your radio station, familiar and small, but still  _ yours _ .  
You miss a lot of things, and the sum of those things together was the town called Desert Bluffs.  
The sun doesn't set here. The lighthouse is always in sight. You wonder if this could become your home too. If this could be Desert Bluffs too.  
And you decide that, yes, it can be. It  _ will _ be. So the construction begins.

You are smiling, genuinely. Even if  _ she _ still has to be a part of it.  
You still have to deal with her. She insists on co-hosting sometimes, even though she's not in charge of the broadcasts (not in the slightest).  
But she  _ is _ in charge of the town now. You don't mind. She's receptive to ideas and suggestions, especially when laced with thinly-veiled threats. She's been so eager to please now that Strex was made irrelevant. And you are happy to use every resource at your disposal to make Desert Bluffs Too the best town it can be.  
_ Carpe diem _ , right?

You are happy. You are so happy that it hurts, and you wouldn't have it any other way.  
Maybe in another time, you didn't want this. Maybe at one point you didn't understand. Maybe you've been hurting your whole life through— sometimes physical pain, sometimes emotional turmoil, sometimes forgotten trauma— but now the pain is yours to choose, and you choose to smile so excruciatingly wide that no one could possibly doubt your joy.

You smile. You smile and smile and smile and smile, and people scream— if only they could be as happy as you.


End file.
